Alienation, autonomy, and ideology
As I’ve mentioned, I’m making a return to the classroom this semester to teach a section of Intro to Philosophy at the University of Iowa.
Well, the semester’s coming to a close, and it’s final exam week! Along with everyone else associated with campus, this means I’m staying busy! When I’m not writing an exam, I’m proctoring one or grading one.
And so, I’ll be back next week at the usual time and place.
I moved to the purple state of Iowa in 2007. It had a Democratic governor and an ideologically diverse state legislature and political discourse. And it soon became the launching pad for the presidential campaign of Barack Obama, our first black president.
Iowa was never perfect. My politics always sat well to the left of anyone who held office in 2007. But having moved here from Indiana, I found it a breath of fresh air. Compared to Indiana’s four decade long decline into hard conservatism, Iowa practically felt like California.
It doesn’t feel like California now. Looking back two decades later, I have to ask: what happened?
My partner and I closed on our house in January 2021. Now that the date sits more than 5 years in the rear-view mirror, I think back on how it happened. And my answers aren’t very comforting for those looking to buy a house now.
We have no shortage of comparisons and metaphors for the Trump presidency! Let’s see how professional wrestling and kayfabe fit into that picture.
Many of these metaphors stem from the Great Fascism Debate, which I joined for some time before swearing it off. Among other problems, the “Trump as Hitler” and “Trump as Mussolini” move is lazy. Even worse, it commits the sin of lack of imagination.
But I’ve flirted with several comparisons myself. Entering the 2016 race as a media mogul using right-wing populism and a kayfabe personality to climb to the top, Trump looked remarkably similar to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
More interestingly, I compared Trump to trash TV character Al Bundy from Married with Children.
How’d that go? Bundy was a roughly middle class guy in suburban Chicago, so he’s not like Trump in terms of job or income. Rather, Bundy personified the Trump voter. He aired white male grievances at a variety of targets – a feminist neighbor, a woman boss, a Latina TV anchor, and so on.
However, these metaphors have all become tired. With that in mind, let’s return to that earlier word ‘kayfabe.’ Maybe it can offer us new clues.
Welcome to our first full spring edition of the reading list here at Base and Superstructure! Here are some of the things that I’m reading as we build into warmer weather and more sunshine.
Hope you enjoy!
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